If It Falls, It Might Break Your Legs

Since the New Year began, I've been in the process of moving into the box room in my house. It took a day to move the bookshelves and bed downstairs, and then there were several long waits between getting the correct shelving put up on the walls. I'm still waiting on a couple of CD shelves.

The most noticeable addition to the room is a large square shelving unit from IKEA, Land of the Stylish Furniture, Home of the Ridiculously Convenient Storage and Shelving Units. It sticks out over a foot over my bed, and came with the warning from my older brother, "If it falls, it will break your legs." That's a rough paraphrase, but you get the point.

I like to think of this massive shelving unit as a worthwhile risk. Part of its job is to remove clutter from my desk - I have a set of boxes, one of which will hold miscellaneous office stationary - while also holding a couple of items for storage and some for display. It looks amazing. It will look more amazing when it has been filled with light-enough items. And if it falls, it will break my legs.

I don't think I can stress that part enough.

The reason I bring this up is because, having just finished reading The Curve  by Nicholas Lovell, I'm beginning to recognise the importance of taking risks. In every industry, someone has to take a risk for that industry to survive. Someone has to experiment. Someone has to try something new. Someone has to risk it falling down on top of them, breaking their proverbial legs.

It's probably not the most user-friendly metaphor for risk.

The book was an insight into the world of business, and it helped me make a decision I had been thinking about for a long time. When I publish book three of the Modern Irish Myth series, the books will be put on hiatus in terms of publishing. I will still promote the books. I will still work on the later books in the series - albeit without the immediate intention of publishing. I will still love the books.

The problem isn't how much I like them. The problem is how little they sell for how much time I put into them. That's not a complaint, just a statement of reality. I'm still working on building an audience, generally speaking, and I think maybe people need a different type of book. Heck, I need a different type of book, and I need to see how well I can sell the existing books in the Modern Irish Myth series. I'd also like to redesign the covers. Simplicity doesn't do it, any more. (That actually goes for all my older ebooks. I'd like to do new covers for them.)

This kind of falls into the same sort of thought patterns I had when I was reading The Millionaire Messenger by Brendon Burchard, and when I was putting together the plan for a new series of books. I can't just write all of these books that aren't selling as well as I want them to, not if I need the little bit of money I can get from writing others books that are more likely to sell, and that I also really like writing. (It's a rough guestimate, without really having done the maths, but I think Planning Before Writing has earned me about 95% of my royalties in total, and it's only 99 cent, USD.)

So, I'm taking a risk. I'm going to write other books and try them in the market. I'm going to try different things in my life that are based around the other books I'm writing. I may be setting up a small business from this. I don't know yet. (I know I want to, and I know what I would do, I just don't yet know how well I'd be able to do it. I still have more to learn on that matter, but I've been getting there for the past four and a half years, even though this is a more recent idea than, you know, when I started in college.)

Basically, my life is changing and I want it to. I've learned a lot about writing, about business, and about myself in the past few years. I like where my life is heading when I get passionate about something, and I have a magic green folder in my room that says I need to do this. I have articles in magazines telling me to write the things I need to write (for money) that I love writing, and I have books telling me to plan my life in the best way that the money I'm earning is nearly on automatic and whatever other time I have is extremely valuable.

I've needed someone to tell me that, and several authors did in their own ways. That's awesome.

With all of this said, I should probably mention a new book on its way to publication within the next couple of weeks. I finished writing everything but the conclusion earlier this week. Later this month, I'll be publishing 25 Ways to Beat Writer's Block (While Improving Your Writing Skills). I'm very excited about it. There are some really simple ideas in it, and some that I think are just wonderful. Every chapter has either a writing exercise to help you develop some aspect of writing while working on getting back to your current work in progress, or some tool for helping develop yourself as a writer and/or a person. (It really depends on what you take from the book.)

I still need to write the conclusion. I need to edit the book. I need to design a cover and write a blurb, and I need to do all of this while also working on my next big project. Before all of that, I need to decide on what my next big project will officially be. I have ideas. I know what I want to publish in March/April. I just don't know if I'll have another in February/March. There's a big one, and a smaller one, and I like them both.

Basically, I'm spoiled for choice on books I love the idea of and really want to write. (These are all writing books. Aside from book three in the Modern Irish Myth series, I don't have a planned novella for publication until September. That's assuming I nothing changes between now and then. That's very possible.) This is a very exciting time to take a risk by abandoning one thing I love writing for another. It could break my proverbial legs if it falls. Or, it could hold up well and look great doing so. Right now, with everything so unpredictable, I can only do my best, go in with a plan, and be prepared to fail spectacularly.

This is why it's so exciting to be a publishing author at this point in time, and even if there's a little bit of mess made along the way, if it all works out well, it really looks well.

How Many Ebooks Does It Take?

Every day, I do two things: I check my ebook sales through Amazon, and I update a file that keeps track of my monthly earnings, and my earnings per book. But how many ebooks does it take to match my monthly earnings in work?

Let's break this down a bit:

- A $0.99 ebook earns me, approximately, €0.30.
- A $2.99 ebook earns me, approximately, €1.70.
- I earn, on weeks in which I don't have extra hours, roughly €90 from work. We'll call it €360 for the month.

With those figures in mind, I would need to see 1200 ebooks at $0.99 per month to be matching my earnings from the bookshop. You read that correctly.

I currently have three books with that price tag stuck on them: Planning Before Writing, Old Gods Returned, and Writing Gifts, on a Shoestring.

Similarly, I need to sell 212 ebooks at $2.99 to make the same €360 per month. It's considerably less, as you can see. Right now, I only have one book published at that price: Balor Reborn.

I'm under no illusion that this is an easy task. Selling even a tenth as many books as I'd need to just to match my bookshop earnings is difficult. If a writer planned on making a living from writing, they'd need to: (a) have a massive readership and/or (b) earn money from different sources.

I would recommend the latter. Ebooks, as I think I've said here before, are not the goldmine people seem to think they are. Unless you become a bestseller, you're probably not going to put food on the table three times a day every day of the month from ebooks. (Unless you can feed your whole family on €1.70 per meal and sell only 90 ebooks at $2.99... and even then, that's a challenge.)

Considering the fact that rent for most people is at least as much as I earn per month, most likely more, there are obvious obstacles to overcome financially. Believe me when I say this, I would much rather be able to earn from ebooks than mop up a shop floor on a Sunday afternoon. But that's just not possible at the moment.

Why the honesty about the figures? I guess because I want to make it clear to myself why I'm not just packing in the job every time I feel like I don't want to be there (mopping up floors with people walking on them at the same time, or carrying out rubbish bags that are torn in several places...) The reality is, I don't currently have another way of making money than working in a shop that isn't getting enough business to keep me constantly busy. I wouldn't mind if there was something to do throughout the entire day. I would prefer be nearly run off my feet in the shop keeping the till going or replacing stock on the shelves. I wouldn't feel like I was just waiting for the next person to show up with a book to buy or a complaint to make about how we don't, as a small bookshop, have the out of print book they're looking for.

Part of me had these high hopes that when college finished up, I'd be in a position to change my life drastically. That just isn't so. Sure, life is different. But I didn't make that change. Maybe I'm afraid to do something about it. That seems very likely. I'm going to try challenge that fear this week (Thursday's going to be my Face Up To Fear Day) by doing something different, by breaking out of the mould I'm in. While I'm still going to keep publishing ebooks (and I'm working on getting Planning Before Writing available through Smashwords, but the site is giving me some trouble), I'm not going to pretend that it'll be easy to even match my income from the bookshop any time soon.

It take a lot of ebooks to make a difference in a life. The best way you can help an author is to buy their books and recommend those books to friends. It can help pay food bills, or make life more meaningful, or help save for education, either their own or their children's or their partner's. How many people does it take to change an author's life?

Writing Like There's No Tomorrow

I have this habit of procrastinating when it comes to exams by writing a lot more. In this instance, with exams only a week away (it's time to panic, yes), I've been writing a lot of articles and reviews. Okay, maybe a lot is an exaggeration. It's been like eight or something like that. But for me it feels like a lot. I have this habit of not doing much when I get off college for an extended period of time.

But sure, it's all changing now. While I should be studying more - I can sort that out easily - I am doing work for my thesis. So that's fine.

When it comes to the articles, I suppose I'm trying to establish a routine for myself of actually doing something with my time. I enjoy reviewing books and comics and films, so it makes sense that I would do it as much as possible. It won't make me much money - or any, depending on how few people actually click on the advertisements in the posts - but it's good practice, I think, to produce something on a daily basis.

It's all preparation for the summer, and then the rest of my life when I get out of college.

The basic plan for this summer, with a two week teaching period in late August, is to do as the title says: write like there's no tomorrow. I don't have holiday plans (need money to have holiday plans), so I'm going to write books and articles and read and edit and basically spend my summer with words. I will probably make more of an effort to go outside when the weather is nice. If the weather is nice. Wasn't summer, like, four weeks ago at this stage?

The basic format for my published writing goes like this:

• Reviews of recent comics and Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror films and books go to The Phantom Zone. It's a hired position, and I'd like to keep it.
• Reviews of older comics, films and books go to Stories Once Told, my review site, alongside reaction posts to new episodes of my favourite shows. Those shows tend to chance from time to time, with the number of them going up and down as time goes by. Currently they are:
  - Touch
  - Game of Thrones
  - (And, if I like the Pilot tonight) Alphas
  - And possibly Glee. If I can be bothered.
• Articles will be posts on my main site, though those are about writing, generally.
• New issues of World War X will go up monthly on that section of my website. (Is it weird that that still feels weird to put into writing - my website?!)

As well as that, I've got the multitude of ideas for books, plays and screenplays to deal with. I only have three months, but if I write quick enough I can knock out quite a few first drafts. Those are the fun starts, and I can work with them when I can't write new material so much (you know, when I'm stuck teaching or writing essays for college).

I also plan on trying to get myself into the freelancing business. While I know most freelancers don't make a living from it, I also won't make a living working weekends in a bookshop. And I just don't feel ready to go into a teaching position. As if there are many of those. Sure, we'll see what happens with that. Still over a year before I'm qualified, which is a lot of time to develop my skills in the writing trade.

Trade? Sure, we'll go with that.

I do also plan on releasing more ebooks in the future. Again, not a massive money-making field, but for me it's about getting the stories out there. The money would just be the added bonus that lets me live.

This is almost a plan for life as it is a plan for the summer, isn't it? Well, I suppose that's just the way I'm feeling right now. I want to live a life like this, writing for a living and not giving a damn who knows that that's my dream. Because it is, you know? I don't want to work in an office or a classroom all my life. I'd like to see the world, to live a weird life and write the stories that have been going around in my head for the past seven or eight years.

And as far as I'm concerned, there's nothing wrong with that.

Free Book Out Tomorrow!

We're literally hours away from Stepping Forward going live on the Internet. Hours. I plan on staying up to sort out getting it available as early as possible on December 15th (local time, of course...). The best part, of course, is that the book is free to download. This has a number of advantages:

1. It means that you, the reader, do not have to pay to read a longer work of fiction that I have written.
2. It means that there is literally no point in anyone pirating this e-book: all someone has to do is go to the Smashwords page and download themselves in whatever format they want.
3. And yes, I did say in whatever format. This is keeping in mind the available formats from Smashwords, but what it boils down to is that most, if not all, e-readers will be able to support the file.

One thing people haven't asked me is why I'm releasing the book for free. For a start, it helps me get my name out there. I plan on editing Meet Sam a lot over the next few weeks to get it ready for submission to a publisher, and this will be something I hope people can enjoy in the meantime.

There's also the fact that I've wanted to give a Christmas present out for a very long time: this is that present. Free for me and free for you. Simple.

I enjoyed writing the book, and the few people who have read it have enjoyed it, so with any luck it will appeal to the wider audience of the whole of the Internet. (I jest, of course...).

And why Smashwords? Aside from hearing a lot of good things about them, I wanted to get the book away from the little corner on the Internet I call my website. While I love my website, and while I loved the idea of having the free chapters there to download, it wasn't practical. While the server would have been able to deal with the traffic, I had no way of knowing how many people were actually downloading the book. Smashwords should fix that problem, while also putting the book in the market.

Mostly, though, I just want to have fun with this, and I want to have a book available for people to read. So many people in college have heard me say I'm a writer and aside from the website, there's nothing there for them to really base that on.

I do have a request, however: I want people to read this book. I want honest feedback on the book. What did people like? What did they not like? Would they recommend it to a friend? Is there a glaringly obvious typing error I missed in my edits? (That one's a joke... I've done everything I can to make this as perfect as possible in terms of spelling and grammar!) Mostly, I want to know if people enjoyed the book. Reading should be fun.

Remember, though, that this isn't the last book I'll be releasing. I have a project in mind that I have told people on various social networking sites, and I aim to publish things to do with that in the same way, while aiming towards the traditional publishing route with other books. I don't believe authors should restrict themselves to one or the other, especially not today.

Readers who still buy paper books should be given the option to read something extra by an author if they really want to. At the same time, readers who have only read the e-books might be encouraged to go for a paper book if they liked the author enough. This isn't just me I'm talking about. This is how I believe the publishing industry might survive in an age when e-books are getting stronger. Readers need more options, but not authors shouldn't be restricted to one market or the other in order to give a reader these options.

With that said, this is my first step into the publishing world. This is the first, but not the last, free book I publish. I can't say for sure what's coming next or when, but I will do my utmost best to ensure that there will always be new material out there by myself for people to read. This is a lot for myself as it is for people who genuinely love to read, and given the economic climate, I'd like to offer something for free to make sure that, so long as people have Internet access, people always have options of books to read.

So, quick recap, back to where this started: Stepping Forward is out tomorrow, December 15th 2011, for free. The first step of the longest journey of my life begins then.

Nuggets of Info - Paper Vs Ebooks

A while ago Rebecca Woodhead sent an email around looking to see which people preferred: Paper books, or Ebooks. I had given it some consideration, but I was too busy to reply to her directly. I suppose, as a writer, I ought to make my opinion heard. Even if only by a few people.

So, I do consider the two to have their advantages over the other. Paper books give that feeling of actually reading a book. They don't put as much strain on the eyes as you would get looking at a screen all day. They keep the economy going a little bit, as people are more likely to pop into a shop and buy the books than go online to buy them, spontaneously. Unless you're walking past an online bookshop, you won't just decide out of the blue to buy an Ebook. The spontaneity of book buying helps keep the shops open. There's also the added perk of "new book smell" to consider.

As regards Ebooks, they're lighter. You won't find an E-Reader heavier than two or three books. It just doesn't happen. Unless the books are tiny, the E-Reader is more ergonomic. You can store whole libraries on one, or on your computer or online. You have access to the books whenever you want. With certain E-Readers, you can just buy a book on the spot, without having to go into a shop. This has the advantage of saving you time. In a matter of minutes - usually in less the time it takes to even get to the shop - you can be reading your book.

I stand somewhere in the middle of the argument. I don't have an E-Reader, so paper books are my only choice aside from reading on my laptop. While Ebooks are cheaper, in general, I do prefer paper books. I like to hold the book. I like placing the bookmark between the pages. I like getting my books signed by the author. I like giving books as presents. I like that my job is to sell the paper books to people who don't know what they're looking for. I like the feel of the book and making sure the spine and corners are okay before I give the customer the book. I like keeping my books in as good a condition as possible. I like getting individual copies of my books printed through Lulu.com as a notice to myself: You did this, and it's not just on your laptop anymore.

Of course, I love that there are Indie authors who have found Ebooks to be a great way to get an audience. I love that they can make a living from it all. I like the controversy behind turning down a publishing deal just to publish an Ebook themselves. It's even better when the figure was huge - half a million dollars in one case!

I will use paper books for as long as is possible. I may make a transition to E-Reader if I end up in a position of travelling a lot, unless I know where good bookshops are all around the world. But of course, the problem is that if I'm travelling a lot and I keep buying books, I then have to carry them around with me a lot more. There are always pros and cons. Right now, I'm a paper book reader.